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The Quarto Version of Henry V as a Stage Adaptation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Some time ago, Dr. W. J. Lawrence, writing in the Criterion, stated his belief that the Shakespearean “Bad Quartos” which have in the past provoked so many conflicting explanations are in reality nothing more than unauthorized stage adaptations made directly from the full theatre manuscript by pirates who then performed the plays in the provinces. Dr. Lawrence reached this conclusion after finding certain similarities running through all the bad quartos, notably the absence of reflective passages, which would indicate abridgment for provincial performance, and the transposition of scenes, which might have resulted from the necessities of doubling. As to the bad quarto of Henry V, at least, I am convinced that Dr. Lawrence's theory is the right one. From a careful word-for-word comparison of that text with the folio text of 1623, I had myself reached the same conclusion before his article came to my attention. Since Dr. Lawrence did not attempt to show the manner in which the supposed adaptation was made, I shall here set forth the results of my own more detailed study in support of his general hypothesis.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934
References
1 W. J. Lawrence, “The Secret of the Bad Quartos.” Criterion (London), x (1931), 447–461.—Dr. Lawrence includes among the Shakespearean bad quartos the first printed quartos of Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Merry Wives, and Hamlet, already named by Mr. A. W. Pollard in his Shakespeare Folios and Quartos (1909); and also the First Part of the Contention and the True Tragedy, which he agrees with Mr. Peter Alexander, Shakespere's Henry VI and Richard III (Cambridge 1929), in holding to be corrupt versions rather than the sources of 2, 3 Henry VI respectively.
2 From a study of the stage directions in Henry V, Miss Barbara Simison has also concluded that the quarto was derived from the theatre manuscript, though she does not seek to explain how the text was produced. She believes that the abridgment was legitimate and was made by the Chamberlain's men for their own use. See “Stage Directions: a Test for the Playhouse Origin of the First Quarto of Henry V.” PQ, xi (1932), 39–56.—The nature of the adaptation is itself sufficient evidence, I believe, that it could not have been made by the Chamberlain's men.
3 Publications of the New Shakespeare Society, Series ii, vol. 9 (1877). Introduction to the Parallel Text Edition.
4 “The Relation of the First Quarto Version to the First Folio Version of Shakespeare's Henry V.” P.Q., vi (1927), 225–234.—No one who has held the first draft theory has attempted to explain all the peculiarities of the text.
5 Other plays “staied” at the same time were As You Like It, Every Man in His Humor, and Much Ado about Nothing. That Thomas Creede was able to print Henry V in spite of the apparent injunction has been thought to be due to his ownership of the earlier play on the life of Henry the Fifth, The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth. It is curious how frequently the same names recur in connection with the printing and selling of the bad quartos. Henry V was printed by Thomas Creede and sold by Millington and Busby. In 1594 Thomas Creede had printed the First Part of the Contentions for Thomas Millington; the next year the True Tragedy was also printed for Thomas Millington, though by another printer, Peter Short. In 1602 John Busby entered the Merry Wives on the Stationers' Register, though he immediately transferred it to another bookseller, Arthur Johnson, for whom Creede printed it. The Famous Victories, which Creede printed for his own account in 1598 (it was entered on the Stationers' Register in 1594), itself appears to be an abridged version of a fuller play.
6 The absence from the traitor scene (ii, ii), in the quarto of every mention of the name Scroope suggests that the players wished to avoid embarrassing some contemporary bearer of that name. In the folio the name Scroope appears four times within speeches and five times as a prefix. The quarto omits it each time it is named in the speeches and prefixes Scroope's own lines by his manorial name, Masham, indicated variously Mash. or Masha. The male line of the Scropes of Masham had died out by this time, but the Scropes of Bolton had recently been prominent in the north. Henry, the ninth baron Scrope of Bolton, was warden of the west marches until he died in 1592. Upon his death, his eldest son, Thomas, succeeded to the baronetcy as tenth baron Scrope of Bolton. It was to Henry Scrope, according to Sir Edmund Chambers (The Elizabethan Stage, ii, 266) that King James in 1589 addressed the request that the Queen's players be sent into Scotland for the entertainment of his bride. Professor Murray lists a company of Lord Scrope's men, records of whom he found in the northern provinces in 1557 and 1564–5, but none later than that date. These were under the protection of Henry Scrope. If his son Thomas had any players under his patronage, no account of them exists so far as I am aware.
7 J. T. Murray, English Dramatic Companies, 1558–1642 (London, 1910). “J. T. Murray, English Dramatic Companies in the Towns outside of London 1550–1600,” Mod. Phil., ii (1905), 539–559.
8 Alvin Thaler, “The Traveling Players in Shakespeare's England,” Mod. Phil., xvii (1919–20), 489–514.
9 L. B. Wright, “Variety Entertainment by Elizabethan Strolling Players,” J.E.G.P., xxvi (1927), 294–303.
10 Hereward T. Price, The Text of Henry V (Newcastle under Lyme, 1920).
11 Line references are to the Parallel Text Edition prepared by Brinsley Nicholson and P. A. Daniel for the New Shakespeare Society. Publications of the New Shakespeare Society, Series ii, vol. ix (1877).—The citations are also made from that edition.
12 Evelyn May Albright, “The Folio Version of Henry V in Relation to Shakespeare's Times,” PMLA, xliii (1928), 722–756.
13 It may be, as Mr. Alfred Hart suggests (“Acting Versions of Elizabethan Plays,” Review of English Studies, x, 1–28), that some of these passages had already been omitted by the Chamberlain's Men in order to bring the performance within the limit of two hours. Mr. Hart believes that acting versions were usually cut to 2300 or 2400 lines. The quarto version of Henry V has only 1623 lines, however, as compared with 3379 lines in the folio version. Such drastic cutting exceeds anything that the Chamberlain's men could reasonably be supposed to have done.
14 Brinsley Nicholson, “The Relation of the Quarto to the Folio Version of Henry V.” Transactions of the New Shakespeare Society, Ser. i, vol. viii (1881), 77–102.
15 Op. cit.
16 The only French name occurring in the source passage in Holinshed that might possibly have been misread as “Gebon” is that of Sir Guilliam de Saueses. Guilliam, if carelessly spelled and shortened in the manuscript, say for example to Guilliā, Gilliā, or 
, could in the secretary hand have been so interpreted. Thus in the earliest of Shakespeare's own signatures extant, that of May 11, 1612, his first name, written 
, can very easily be read as Webon.
17 It has been argued that this passage is based upon Montaigne's essay “On Greatness,” and that it is therefore a later addition since Montaigne's essays did not appear in Florio's translation until 1603. To this it may be replied: (1) that manuscript versions of a part of Florio's translation seem to have been in circulation several years before it was finally printed; (2) that it still remains to be proved that Shakespeare could not read the French original, in which case the authorship of the French scenes in Henry V needs some explanation; and (3) that the resemblance between the soliloquy and Montaigne's essay is not sufficiently close to indicate that Shakespeare had derived the not unusual sentiment from that source.
18 The Disintegration of Shakespeare. Annual Shakespeare Lecture of the British Academy (Oxford University Press 1924), p. 21.